Posted
by
msmash
on Thursday November 16, 2017 @10:06AM
from the growing-trend dept.

In a potential threat to future U.S. innovation, new international enrollment at U.S. colleges is down for the first time in more than a decade, according to a new report. From the report: It is the first hard sign that the Trump administration's rhetoric may be frightening away some of the world's best and brightest who traditionally have been drawn to settle and work in the U.S. Why it matters: "The Chinese whiz kid, if he can find a way to America, he'll come here. If you're good, you can make a lot of money," Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, tells Axios. "That whole set of incentives has always been tied to the immigrant stream, and we're severing that connection." By the numbers: The findings are from the Institute of International Education's annual Open Doors report and its smaller joint "snapshot" report on international enrollment. It found that new international student enrollment dropped by 3.3% for the 2016-2017 academic year, and by a far higher 6.9% in the Fall 2017 semester.

Many of these people will be on a grant. So, yes, it has nothing to do with education cost.

I was curious how much truth there was to this. Here's what some quick Googling turned up:

Financial Aid: FAQs [collegeboard.org]
In 2014-15, about two-thirds of full-time students paid for college with the help of financial aid in the form of grants and scholarships. Approximately 57 percent of financial aid dollars awarded to undergraduates was in the form of grants, and 34 percent took the form of federal loans.

You're researching schools because you want to study well and succeed.

Are you put off by:A). What Trump said about illegal immigrants from Mexico and about Muslims?orB). Viral, million view videos of activists storming libraries, disrupting campus, screaming at professors, screaming at fellow students?

Now imagine yourself as a parent who will be footing the bill. Are you put off by the former or the latter?

The alt-right smear campaign against higher education and exorbitant tuition fees are likely both factors, but I think that the recent surge in anti-immigration rhetoric plays a major role. A large fraction (as in, vast majority) of international students are graduate students. Many of them are master's students, who do pay a huge tuition rate to study in the US, and then a good chunk of them go back home. These students are basically just a revenue stream used to subsidize the tuition of domestic students. A 7% decrease here can easily be offset by hiring slightly fewer faculty/lecturers going forward and raising tuition on domestic students by maybe 2-3%.

But the students who matter most from an economic competitiveness perspective are the PhD students. PhD students don't pay tuition--they get paid. PhD students aren't going to be scared by viral videos--they have already spent years on campuses and know full well that the alt-right boogeyman's depiction of campus life has little semblance of reality. Yet enrollment among this crowd is way down. Moreover, in the past year, I have personally helped three exceptional PhD students from my institution find advisors in Canada and Germany so that they could complete their studies outside of the US. Their reasons for wanting to move had nothing to do with tuition or viral videos; they had to do with feeling welcome/safe, having their family be able to visit, etc. These people will create jobs and help drive economic growth somewhere; just not here.

Campus protest videos can be seen on Chinese video sharing sites and social media. There are Chinese language discussion threads about the state of the American college campus. The sentiment is overwhelmingly negative.

The Chinese sentiment on Trump is general ambivalence, coupled with the usual chatter about how American democracy is really an aristocracy.

Often these kids will be on a big set of grants. Either from the college to get the best and brightest. Or from their parents government to give these kids a top education so they come back as the best and brightest. Now say 80% return to their home it is a benefit for the home country and the 20% that stays in the US is a benefit to us.And those who returned to the home country they returned with a better understanding on what America is and see us beyond what the nation will have us portrayed as, for good or for bad.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the exploding cost of education, it must be all Trump's fault.

Whataboutism! I work for a UK University and we're seeing a rise in international students + our education costs are also skyrocketing. I don't know anyone who wants to travel to the states at the moment precisely because you elected a bigoted troll who's making a luaghing stock of your country.

Trumps Granddad was an illegal immigrant, deported once for running a brothel in Oregon and sneaked back again and got into the construction business. Wonder why Trump is so much against illegal immigrants. I believe the lady doeth protest too much.

I think his point is that the UK, which is second only to the US in terms of its higher education system, also faces the same increase in costs, while not experiencing a downturn in foreign students. In other words, they are a counterexample to the argument that it's all about cost.

Here's the funny part - these gents all came in legally under the immigration laws of their respective times, which is actually perfectly cool.

The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'

If both side of the issue were intellectually honest, this wouldn't even be an issue.

The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'

He's making moves to deport them by ending DACA, he's appointing officials who want to aggressively deport, makes false statements about crime caused by undocumented immigrants, and wants to bankrupt us building a wall between us and mexico.

On top of that, I mean, I've met Trump supporters. I'm a white dude. They don't exactly play their cards close to their chest on this subject.

No one is forcing the things down our throats -- in fact, overprescription of opiods has been better at getting people hooked than any drug dealer. Want to go after someone; go after Purdue Pharma and similar firms.

Immigrants themselves? The diversity in my city actually makes it an interesting and wonderful place to live and adds to its art, science (yes), and culture.

I'm all for US criminals escaping arrest to a foreign country. Means we don't have to pay to lock them up -- we already have a disgracefully high (and expensive) prison population.

Sex trafficking would largely go away if we legalized prostitution between consenting adults -- it would be regulated and anyone forced into it could openly go to the police and seek help.

We can buy better weapons, legally, than are available in Mexico, so how does that affect us. If Mexico has a problem with US weapons entering it, strengthening its border security is THEIR problem, not ours.

In an ideal world, violent criminals and thieves would go to jail. Not that I mind a few escaping if I don't have to pay taxes to lock them up.

But it's also a fact that we make too many "criminals." We jail people for drug offenses that harm only themselves, for consensual sex between adults, even for unpaid parking tickets in some cases. Our sentences are Draconian. A journalist who filmed protests that damaged property in DC is essentially facing a life sentence (60+ years) -- he expressed support, but never participated in any property damage.

If he made bail, cut, and ran abroad across a porous border, I wouldn't blame him one bit -- in fact, I'd applaud and cheer for him. No sense risking a life sentence in front of a biased court.

I'd rather have a few violent criminals escape "justice" than have a tight border that can potentially be used to keep political criminals from escaping.

This being said, Obama was less authoritarian than Trump. He pushed civil forfeiture and criminal justice reforms. He didn't advocate violence against his opponents ("I'll pay your legal fees if you punch 'em in the face.") He didn't profess to admire heavy-handed murderers like Duterte. No real comparison.

Trump proposed an immigration system that let people in based on merit. Democrats called him racist.

To be fair, Trump's idea of merit included "what country you were born in" and "what religion you believe in". The Democrats are right, Trump is racist, but Trump's immigration plan seemed more unconstitutional and xenophobic than racist.

So you are saying we should repeat the mistakes of Mexico and let people flood in because they might openly rebel? I think that's where your logic was headed, but maybe you were trying to make a different point.

"The best and the brightest" are vastly overrated in science no matter their origin. Without the stars you mentioned, science would have been delayed at most a few years. Most science labs are one head who writes grants and an army of grad students and postdocs doing the actual work.

And, importantly, a great chunk of THOSE workers are foreigners.

My last lab, three of the four postdocs were chinese nationals. The lab before that was me and a Korean national.

Citizens do not have the hunger of immigrants. These are a self selected group of risk takers who have given up everything they know to try something new in a new country where they have no support structure. Few American born have the drive to do the same and that includes the American born children of immigrants. Intelligence AND drive both are required to succeed and keeping an open border means a fresh supply of drive coming in with every generation.

Those are just the kind of names known to the general populace; it doesn't even begin to list the kind of people who are pre-eminent in their field but not known to the general public.

We're a big country, but still only 4% of the world's population lives here. US preeminence in science and technology, along with the military and economic benefits that brings, is unnatural and temporary. It was jump-started by the Nazis -- when I was at MIT in the 1970s many of the most prominent professors were scholar-refugees from WW2 -- but for the rest of the 20th century the influx of brilliant minds became a self-perpetuating process, to the immense benefit of native-born scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.

Few of us are old enough to remember a time when American wasn't the unchallenged world leader in science, technology, and business; Many of us regard this as a kind of American birthright. But it's not. Yes, there may be cultural reasons for American innovation punching above our very considerable population weight, but we can't overcome sheer numbers.

Current economic projections see the US overtaking China as the world's largest manufacturing nation in several years, based on US technological leadership. But that's something we can't take for granted, not without a steady influx of the best young minds in the world.

Sadly I write this..Those 4 people had one thing in common: Way back then, this country had a LOT more freedom, and scientists not only weren't restricted, they were encouraged!...Today: We have restricted, corporation controlled via digital technology, and your being watched world!...It makes me very sad that technology seems to be used mostly for bad things, instead of making people happier.

These countries who bring there students to the US are often their best and brightest. Then a percentage of them will stay here so we have more of the best and brightest paying taxes and contributing to our society.The bulk that goes back to their home country will know about American values and have a better understanding of us and would be less likely to blindly hate us, and being the best and brightest they may get into a position of power and their experience with the US for the most part would affect our relationship with them.

Foreign students are a net positive. We are not diverse enough as we keep on doing things the same way because it didn’t fail yet.

It's not a poor me comment. I love the diversity. Just to reverse the normal meme "I have 1 white friend." Everyone else is Hispanic or black (my deceased wife was black and my current is Hispanic and between the two wives, a very diverse group of kids.)

I'm not sure what you read in my comment that gave you the poor me vibe.

And none of this dual citizen shit. If you become a US citizen, you have to renounce any existing citizenships.

Some countries do not permit you to do so, for example Morocco. And then there are the countries who penalize their (former) Citizens by charging them "expatriation" tax on everything they own if they wish to renounce their citizenship. Well, there is only one that does so. Oh shoot! It's the U.S.!

Not sure about your Oxford example (not that the punishment of domestic grad students isn't heinous in itself). If the Oxford/Rhodes student stays out of the US most of the year, they'd be entitled to take the foreign income exclusion, which isn't going anywhere fast and is something like $100k/yr.

This being said -- this has the mark of authoritarianism on it. One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government is going after the educated and those who want an education, both in word and deed. Words: "li

To us over here, going to the US now is like going to Germany in 1937 or something.

- I don't want to end up in a concentration camp ("black site") when flying over.- Nor do I want to be anally fisted at touchdown. (The 9/11 terrorists did not land, now did they?)- Or live among hyperselfish pschopaths. (I am basing this statement on research.)- Or risk dying because I do not have $500,000 for a pill or simple operation.- Or pay $500,000 to get an education that is free in my country.

And as we close the door ever tighter against the rest of the world, they'll discover that they don't really need us, anyhow. They'll walk right past us and wonder how it ever was that people used to risk their lives to come here.

It's about time we had a true multipolar world instead of the American bully telling everyone what they can and can't do. This arrogance has been pissing a lot of people off for a long time and the applause will be long and loud as we get our comeuppance. Finally the world will get to keep its smart people to benefit their own instead of having them stolen away by the evil empire.

Except that if you look at a cross section of foreign students, they aren't always the 'best and the brightest' and come here for any number of reasons. Some believe they will be getting the best education at a certain institution and others may do it for prestige or perhaps as a path to citizenship. There are probably numerous reasons that I haven't mentioned but without looking at who is coming here and why the gross statistic doesns't tell us very much.

we've pretty much got everything needed for a modern economy. Even the rare earth minerals. The only reason we're getting them overseas is they're willing to abuse their population more than we are resulting in cheaper prices. China isn't better at manufacturing, they're more ruthless at it. Same with Mexico.

OTOH the rest of the world _does_ need us. China can't feed their population without our grainery.

Except that is not occurring, and is simply the standard Left egregious misrepresentation.

The "door" has been made tighter for a very specific subset of potential risk areas from the Middle East, as fully agreed as such by Obama before Trump had any authority on the matter.

Less people are coming here because education and economic opportunities elsewhere in the world has caught up to the U.S. to a large degree. No need to add more "blame Trump" standard transparent idiocy.

"Blame" is the wrong word; you're looking for "succeed."

This is exactly the outcome our President has stated he's after: America First.

Our President is succeeding at keeping America for Americans by keeping foreigners out. This is just one of many facets of that success.

I happen to think it's a terrible way to run a county, but it's exactly what he told us all he wanted to do, so it's kind of silly to "blame" him for making good on his promise.

We need the brightest people we can get from everywhere in the world. Making the path easy and affordable for the best foreign scholars makes good sense. Every week we see major breakthroughs in science and technology announced from American research universities. Usually we see teams of three or so scholars being credited with the work and almost always the foreign names dominate the announcements. We need these people. What we do not need is an idiotic congress and senate being paid to accomplish nothing who are simply paid off traitors by special interests.

How is this just? How on earth are these other countries ever supposed to get ahead while we rob them off their best and brightest? We cherry pick while their people suffer under tyrants because all the people capable of resisting already left for America. It's high time this robbery came to a halt.

Since Trump's election I intentionally avoid al business (or holiday) travel to the US. At least we Europeans got to vote with our wallet. No need to support corrupt politicians, and their hateful followers. Many other pretty places in the world to visit and make friends.

Beyond Trump, maybe it's the general mood of Trump-haters and angry activists of all kinds versus Trump supporters and angry defenders of all kinds.

Why come to a country where everyone is angry all the time?Why come to a country where no one can ever be happy?Why come to a country where all the stories are about catastrophic environmental destruction?Who wants to come here to be told they're a victim every day based on something that happened before they were born in their own country?Why come to a country where succeeding financially is considered evil?Why would a young person join a group that only talks about historic grievances and never about future opportunities?Why come to a country where the leaders and entertainers and celebrities all seem to be among the worst examples of humanity?

Why not go to a country with good people and a good social atmosphere instead?

You actually raise some good points, and I think this is the symptom of a bigger problem. This is probably a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it seems like you are literally not allowed to be happy anymore. It like there is always someone or some group out there that seems to exist only to tell you why you should feel bad about something. It doesn't matter what your political, sexual, or religious preferences are, you MUST feel bad about something. That kind of attitude really starts to wear on you after a while and leads to a nation full of angry and unhappy people. This isn't a new phenomenon, it's been slowly growing for the past 15+ years or so, but lately it seems to be in overdrive. It's going to come to head eventually, and I wonder what will happen then.

Put up walls, block out the rest of the world. It means you're limiting your society's access to knowledge and resources to those that are available inside those walls. This means you tend to develop socially and technologically at a slower pace than larger populations, and you tend to grow xenophobic which makes future interactions with the rest of the world more likely to be unfavorable.

Obviously the US isn't disconnected from the world entirely, but you guys certainly seem determined to blow up as many bridges as you can.

When you start hating foreigners, it doesn't take long to start discounting their research. Not that I'm comparing the degree, but you are aware that the Nazis didn't like 'Jewish' science, right? More recently, there have been lots of Muslim fundie groups in the Middle East that have decided Western knowledge is bad.

Within the borders of the United States, you have Trump calling facts 'fake' if he doesn't like the source (which is usually divided along political lines that align fairly well with cultural and geographical regions), and a large percentage of the population is going along with it.

I don't think you're giving enough credit to how serious the issue can get, and how easily.

"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and people would still vote for me."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of man the people of the United States freely, willingly and knowingly chose as their President. That actually says a lot more about the people of the United States than about Trump himself.

Can you blame anyone in the rest of the civilized world for being freaked out by the fact that half the people of the country he's supposed to go live in for a few years clearly show signs of serious mental health issues ?

To be fair, any politician from any country could stand in the middle of Fifth Ave. and shoot someone, and they would still have some people vote for them. A small subset of voters are just weird like that.

Trump is just irreverent and unconcerned about his image enough to state that fact, while most politicians wouldn't touch it for fear of it costing them votes. I mean I share your low opinion of him. But if you consider how politicians over the last couple decades have degenerated into not having any real fundamental ideology, instead basing their positions on whatever polls best, I can see why a lot of people would vote for Trump. The man is unlike any other politician - he forms his own opinions and isn't afraid to state them no matter how unpopular it might make him. That is one of the traits of a leader, and I can see how some people are attracted to that.

Trump made a candid statement about the reality of partisan politics, which reflects the situation on both sides. A statement which appeared not to conform to a doctrine of maintaining both a public and a private position that you would expect from a more experienced politician.

This is now to be conflated with Trump harboring homicidal tendencies and a false belief that he is above the law, and that fully half of the US population endorses this while also suffering from mental illness. This is in addition to the adjectives already used to describe the now infamous basket of deplorables.

Then, when such hyperbole gets mod +5 insightful, it only reinforces the notion that meritocracy matters little to those who put partisanship above all else to the point of becoming blind fanatics. Where there is no value to be had in honest political discourse, but only hate filled rhetoric that drives more distrust and more disinformation to the point where voting becomes purely an emotional reaction.

So no, I wouldn't completely blame someone in the rest of the civilized world for having the wrong impression.

True, but there probably wouldn't be rioting on campuses across the country (and in the streets) if Clinton won.

They asked students why they were protesting the day after the election, and they claimed "because we want our voices to be heard." So our best and brightest didn't understand that that is what the election is for, and having your voice heard (by voting) doesn't guarantee everything goes the way you want. Representative Democracy - the greatest system of choosing leaders... unless the person you

Agreed. That is what was on the Republican ticket.On the other ticket we had a woman that claims to be a feminist that publicly attacked the women that reported on her husbands sexual harassment, even the ones he admitted to. She claimed to be for the "little people" while accepting literally MILLIONS for short speeches to Wall Street tycoons. She laughingly defended a child molester by claiming that the victim was "asking for it".

The list goes on for a long way, and gets longer with every tell-all book that gets released, but the point is that we have a sucky two-party system, and the Democrats put up a candidate that was every bit as flawed as Trump. She suffers from every malady you listed for Trump.

I'd say it's probably the latter. See, whiz kids get scholarships. Even the international ones can get scholarships and stipends.

Fu Er Dai (kids of nouveau riche) however, need to pay full price, and often do it with a newly bought American house paid in full with cash by their parents. Now, with US housing prices at historical highs, coupled with the Chinese economy cooling off, not as many families find it a good investment.

Add to this the growing perception that overseas degrees aren't worth all that much [chinadaily.com.cn] (mainly due to the fact that every dumber-than-a-brick Fu Er Dai has gotten one), and you can easily find explanations to the dip in numbers without alluding to Trump's rhetoric. And that's even without pointing out the fact that the trend started before last year's election.

That is stating that foreign students are making the choice to not attend schools in the United States. The data says no such thing. It is likely the same number of students desire to be educated in the United States as before, but there there are other factors that stand in their way (like having to enter the country through the legal processes).

Further, the article states "worth noting" (IE if they didn't state it they would be too blatantly guilty of expressing their bias without proper facts) that the big schools are affected "much less" than smaller schools that do not have Ph.D. programs. So considering the "best and brightest" are usually those seeking Ph. D. programs at the bigger schools, well, this isn't affecting the "best and brightest" at all.

The effect was much more pronounced in the Midwest and Texas, she said, especially at schools without Ph.D. programs, and at community colleges.

Ahh, now we get to the truth of it. This is about illegal immigrants from Mexico, which were attending smaller schools like community colleges. Isn't this to be expected? If it is harder to illegally enter the United States, and immigrants actually have to follow the policies that have been in place for decades, then less immigrants will be coming in, and thus we would see a drop in foreign enrollment at these kinds of smaller colleges in that specific region of the country.

We're talking about students that enter the country legally, in comparison to other students that have entered the country legally. That hasn't changed. You hypothesize that maybe the same number want to enter, but are deterred by things that haven't changed and didn't deter their predecessors. You then make up the idea that this is about illegal immigration, which it isn't.

I don't think there is any political system in the world that allows the 'best and the brightest' to rise to the top and run things in a way that benefits from their superior way of viewing the world. They are ultimately doomed to failure, too many corrupt toes to step on.

I don't think there is any political system in the world that allows the 'best and the brightest' to rise to the top and run things in a way that benefits from their superior way of viewing the world.

There are far more important reasons for that than corruption. We don't all agree on who the "best and brightest" are and we certainly do not all agree that their views are superior. Then there is the fact that the even those whom you think are the best and brightest may not want to go into politics because they usually have a good job that they enjoy and are unwilling to give it up for the uncertainty of elections and the type of job they will have if they do win.

You can say that about the US. You could take an American who is studying in Germany and blame them for the worst incarceration rate in the world or the atrocities done in Iraq. However, that is pointless. One needs to separate the person from their government. Someone may be of the Han race, but not a Chinese citizen.

People like you never seem to understand that a lot of voters chose Trump by default. They felt that, awful as he is in many ways, he was vastly better than Hillary Clinton - who seemed very likely to get us all killed (and indeed sometimes sounded as if that was her only aim in life).

You do not even understand how distributions work. Guess your name will not be found among the "best and brightest".

The fact of the matter is that the best and brightest of a country (which is a small number of all people) will search opportunities abroad of a) things at home are not good and b) there are attractive opportunities abroad. Traditionally, the US got most of their best scientists and engineers that way, because US education sucks and US society seems to do its very best to discourage the smarte

If all these people are so smart, the "best and brightest", then why are their home countries a gigantic cesspool of filth, poverty, illiteracy, crime, violence and general misery?

Neither the article nor the intro says anything about which countries are not sending so many students to the USA. Which forces me to conclude that the AC believes that the entire world beyond the USA is "a gigantic cesspool of filth, poverty, illiteracy, crime, violence and general misery".

Unfortunately, all too many US citizens seem to agree. But it really isn't true. I live in England, which - while of course far inferior to Scotland - is a pretty decent country apart from its politicians. (And even they aren't nearly as bad as their American equivalents). Most of Europe is quite pleasant to live in (again, of course, were it not for the politicians and the ever-spreading blight of US corporations).

If you would take the trouble to read up on modern China, or Japan, or Singapore, or Russia, or Iran, or Brazil, or Mexico, or many other places, you would find that standards of living are soaring and people have a far more optimistic view of life than most in the USA.

By and large, the only countries that could accurately be described as "gigantic cesspools of filth, poverty, illiteracy, crime, violence and general misery" are those that the USA has attacked and completely, or partially, destroyed.

The alternative to globalism is protectionism. Protectionism has been tried many times, and it doesn't work. If anything, it's even less likely to work these days, now that we have the internet and global supply routes.

The way to deal with globalisation isn't to close our borders, it's to deal with the specific issues.

Education is too expensive, but would be even more expensive if it wasn't for foreign students. The fix is not to turn away that source of revenue that is subsidising local students, it's to deal with the high cost directly. In a lot of European countries university is free for citizens, and costs the government a fraction as much while still being world class institutions.

Jobs are going overseas. That's unfortunate, but if they didn't they would only be automated away anyhow. If not today, then tomorrow. We should help people adapt, to get new high end manufacturing jobs or move into services. Again, Germany has done that, Japan has done that.

The real solutions are hard, and blaming immigrants and globalisation is easy. That's the problem.

Jobs gong oversees which "would be automated anyhow", would be automated in our home country, where some employees woudl work. Services would be rendered. Taxes woudl be paid. Your argument is very thin and incomplete.

Apparently there's protectionism, free trade, and fair trade. I've been talking to the unions, so I've had to learn about fair trade.

Jobs are going overseas. That's unfortunate, but if they didn't they would only be automated away anyhow.

Actually, in many cases, "bringing jobs back" doesn't work. For example: if you brought manufacture of Chinese pants (at $3.20/hr labor) back from China (import cost: 6.5 cents per pair, $6.12 total cost at the receiving port), at American minimum wage of $8.25/hr plus 18% overhead (payroll overhead is 40%), you might create about 5,000 jobs net. When you bump up the wa

Apparently there's protectionism, free trade, and fair trade. I've been talking to the unions, so I've had to learn about fair trade.

True, but let's look at those options.

Free trade. This can mean one of two things. You can have a situation like the EU, where the member states agree to have equivalent rules and regulations so that one doesn't have a big advantage over the others. The US kinda has it but states have more freedom to set taxes to any level they want, which results in citizens getting screwed as they compete for business with subsidies and tax holidays.

Fair trade is just globalisation or protectionism again, depending on wha

The China argument is really strange. People talk about slave labor or something, and ignore that China's exports have allowed it to generate revenue to purchase new technology. That technology is expensive, and they wouldn't have been able to pay their workers well or buy it without exports to other countries: Europe and the United States have been funding China's rapid development, which has resulted in over a decade of growing wages and social insurances, while economic efficiency increases at a pace

Detroit wasn't wrecked by immigration. It was built by it, and will likely be rebuilt by it. What wrecked Detroit was good, old-fashioned, locally-born corruption, racism, and differences in labor rules between states (aka race to the bottom).

This view is deeply flawed.Take Google as an example. You take it for granted that the Google HQ is in the USA, and hires Americans, but what if Sergey Brin was never welcome into the US or Standford, and instead he ended up going to a university in Russia or China or the UK or whatever, and creating his company there? What if Larry Page came to that same university in Russia (or whatever) because it was known as one of the best and most foreigner-friendly university in the world? Had that happened, the Google HQ would have now been in Russia, not California.This may look absurd to you, but it can easily happen in a generation or two: the best students in the world are not welcome in Stanford, so they start choosing an almost-as good university in some other country, which gets better as more of the world's best students choose it. These students start to create companies in that country (if it welcomes them as immigrants), and suddenly it's no longer a "default" that every successful company needs to be in America. The American employees, which until now had an easy life when the world's best companies all flocked to America to employ them, will now need to start looking for jobs in other countries where these new companies are located.Much of America's success in the last 100 years is due to its lax immigration policies, which meant that the best scientists in the world came to work in it and create new companies in it. I live in Israel and remember this happening in the 1980s: All the best scientists I knew were studying in the US, working in the US, or just visiting there. All their knowledge funneled into American universities and companies, and created jobs in America, not in Israel. I don't see how in any sense of the word, America suffered from this situation.

I'm sorry, but what has Google contributed to society that's apparently so unique and unreproducible that we need to act like Sergey Brin and Larry Page are gods? Long before Google we had dozens of Search Engines. Perhaps without their "help" we would have a thriving Internet ecosystem instead of a monopoly on so many online services. We should be honoring people like the Wright Brothers, not some university grads that put together yet another copycat website.

I don't think the Google founders are gods, but the reason we don't have dozens of search engines anymore is because Google was way better than they were. I remember the days of Lycos and WebCrawler and AltaVista, they were terrible at giving relevant results. Google became the biggest search engine because they were the best. It wasn't just a "copycat website", it did the job way better than the existing companies. Perhaps without their "help" (nice scare quotes!) we would still only have terrible sear

If our education system ran off of immigrant dollars, that was never sustainable or good, and we should celebrate its departure.

Baltimore City isn't self-sustaining. It has to bring in food from outside farms, since it doesn't have the climate to farm everything. It has to bring in material from outside quarry, as it doesn't have rich mines for every type of mineral. It has to bring in product from outside manufacturing, as it doesn't have every type of skill and factory. Even if we tried, we'd end up expending far more labor and producing far less per person than the folks all over the country and the world, meaning we'd work long hours for little wealth.

It also has to bring in outside money to not be poor, as what we buy into the city goes out of the city and up the supply chain.

When the major industry and commerce left, Baltimore collapsed. If Amazon put a secondary HQ here, we'd have $2.5Bn-$5Bn more of yearly wage income flowing to the city, being spent, and producing more jobs and more tax revenue. We'd be running off foreign money--non-Baltimore money coming in from all over the US east coast.

The point was an economic one: when you get out of hunter-gathering, you're sustained by outside money. When you're hunter-gathering, you frequently leave the land on which you hunt to find greener pastures.

The already-wealthy are already free from the constraints of any given nation. It's the poor and middle class who want (and need) to take the best opportunities the world provides to them.

Patriotism is over-rated: go where the best opportunities present and where you're most comfortable. I for one will be glad that my kids will entitled to three citizenships (US, an EU country, a CARICOM country). More choice for them is a good thing.

Good now maybe the American students can actually start learning as there are fewer bad accent Teaching Assistants...

This was a serious stumbling block for me when I went back to school. Try being out of college for 10 years and then take calculus with an Indian professor & Chinese TA's. I have no doubt about their competency in the subject, but most of them were not very good at teaching because they couldn't communicate clearly. I had to hire a tutor in order to get a decent grade.

If the TA has a bad accent, then you have a case where the foreigner has out-competed the natives in school.

Now, I agree a sufficiently thick accent can be an impediment to transfer of knowledge, but it's just one factor. If they're good enough to be the TA and the accent is tolerable... complaining about their accent is just an expression of resentment that one of 'them' is better than you. Try learning from them instead. If you ignore their knowledge because of their place of origin, you're not ready t

One of the best lectures I ever had was done by a French professor with really bad English (the TA was not much better). But: He had selected an excellent book, and was handing out excellent exercise sheets.

I still read the alumni magazine my alma mater sends me. I read about amazing students and professors doing great things in their chosen fields and even starting businesses. Usually those businesses are in the US employing Americans.

And quite often these people come from other continents..

The school I went to is looking for the best students they can get and if they come from a foreign land that's okay. In fact, I'd be upset if they told some prospective student who was intelligent and had a good work ethic that they couldn't be admitted because they already had too many foreigners.

We should want smart immigrants who are willing to work for an education to come here. My ancestors just a few generations back were immigrants and yours probably were too.

Of course we could turn these students away along with all their potential. Maybe they'll go to Canada or Europe or maybe they'll start their own universities in Asia or South America or Africa which in a few decades will make our schools look merely average or worse because we told the best students to stay out of our country.

That's the best outcome. Who can say America deserves to be world leader anymore? It's a cruel arrogant country that heartily enjoys bullying the world. The best revenge would be the world passing up the hated oppressors and rendering them impotent, left to stew on their own continent. No more bombing, no more ridiculous IP patent system to lock up ideas, no more police brutality and racism. It's for the best.

Good schools should be USA first and not foreigners on a full ride that pay way more then USC's and get first in line.

As someone who works at a university, I assure you, US students already are preferred - that's the law and it's just cheaper [no visa hassles] to deal with US students. International student's don't qualify for Federal financial aid either. The only undergraduate internationals we want are the full-pay students.

The problem, and this is especially acute at the graduate level, is that U.S. s

... or they end up doing brilliant research in the US, that American finance, law, and public relations majors are unwilling to do, furthering the cause of science, making money for US companies, helping humanity, and maybe teaching the next generation of US students. Like it or not, a lot of our innovators were immigrants.

Noone says all foreigners are smart but any student who makes it to the US is amongst the top students in their country and on average will be smarter than the average American student. Thats just statistics. Its way easier for an American student to get admission to an American college and pay for it (Student loans guaranteed by the federal govt are not available to foreigners).If you met a few folks whose idea of research was different from yours it could be result of a different school system. Try and em

30% of US college funding (about 9 billion) comes from international students. They make up about 12% of the student population.

Now imagine a world where all international students were banned from US universities. Yes there would be 12% fewer students, but also 30% less funding. So either fees would have to go up, or courses would be dropped due to lack of funding.

If you want more US students to go to university you need to look closer to home. The things that stop US students getting a university education is the cost and the lack of government support to pay those costs. No bright American student has ever been denied university access just because of universities taking international students, in fact just the opposite

You don't seem to realize what college is actually for. It isn't a trade school that teaches only immediately practical things.

I don't know any real estate classes, so I don't know what you're talking about there. Business classes are to teach you about business and give you a sound background. Once you understand those, you can learn how to do the paperwork yourself. Science classes teach the science, not the application. Arts class give a good background in arts.